Tutoring Plan Draws Fire at City Schools - Is Anyone Surprised?

Well, the instructional non-6th period" is creating quite a ruckus around town. Gee, vague wording in a contract bull dozed past membership, and chaos as a result. Is anyone surprised? Not me!

From today's NY Times:

Tutoring Plan Draws Fire at City Schools - New York Times:
"Tutoring Plan Draws Fire at City Schools
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

A provision in New York City's new teachers' contract that will require struggling students to stay for 37½ minutes of after-school tutoring is causing confusion and drawing fierce complaints from many parents and educators across the city.

The irregular schedule, which goes into effect early next month, will cut 10 minutes from the school day for students who are not offered tutoring. Critics say that it will disrupt after-school programs, add millions to the cost of busing children, throw private car-pooling arrangements into disarray and interfere with private enrichment activities like religious instruction or ballet, which students have been attending since the start of the school year.

The contract provisions begin with the start of the spring semester. The tutoring would take place Monday through Thursday in groups no larger than 10 students to a teacher. The city has mandated that 290,000 of the city's nearly 1.1 million students attend the tutoring, and 40,000 more have been asked to attend voluntarily, city officials said yesterday.

All of those students and their parents have been notified, officials said, but many parents of children not selected for tutoring have yet to get letters explaining the new schedules.

Some schedules remain to be determined. Principals and teachers can vote for modifications, and officials said that 130 schools had decided to switch tutoring to mornings, before the start of the school day. At Intermediate School 61 on Staten Island, which has an extensive after-school arts program, the principal was working to shift some arts activities to the morning.

The biggest hurdle involves busing. About 170,000 students are bused to and from school, and the city will have to spend millions to add extra routes to accommodate staggered dismissal times. Those routes are still"

~JRY
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